The Wedding Bill Blues

While mowing my weeds I got to thinking about weddings. There’s something about performing unpleasant chores that reminds me of wedded bliss. I came rushing into the house to write this because my memory lasts about as long as confetti.

June is the most popular month for weddings, and right now churches and synagogues are festering with wedding celebrations. According to the Bureau of Made-Up Statistics, the average wedding costs more than $27,000. People have spent months planning and fighting over where to have it, who to invite, who not to invite, what kind of food to serve, which band to hire, and what type of embroidery will be on the napkins. Certainly no one can dispute how successful the institution of marriage is – after all, almost 50 percent of people who get married, stay married – but is a wedding worth all the planning, money, and occasional bloodshed?

Wedding invitations are always a source of humor for me. People get all serious and try to lend an air of formality with such nonsense as:

Mr. and Mrs. Harlow Dimwiddie

request your presence at the wedding of their daughter

Farrah Mones

to

Rocco Gibraltar

on Wednesday, June the 21st, two thousand and eighteen,

6:45 o’clock p.m.

at

Our Lady of Recurring Heartburn Church.

Reception to follow.

Is that boring or what?  Not only that, it carries with it a whole host of assumptions such as:

1. Bring a gift.
2. Dress to the nines.
3. Tell everyone that it was nice meeting them.
4. Do not mention the fact that the bride is pregnant.

If you’re getting married, I suggest sending a less formal invitation such as:

Phil Landerer and Anne Thrax are getting married

at

Dying TreesPark, Pavilion #5

Sometime in June, probably the 21st.  Rain date: June 22nd.

Show up if you want.

No need to buy a gift, but if you do, we need a food processor.

Wear something you can sweat in - it gets pretty humid in June. 

Usually, on the night before the ceremony, members of the wedding party get together for a “rehearsal dinner” (or, as I call it, the Last Supper). Here they hammer out details such as where everyone will stand and what rites will be performed, and the groom plans his escape route. Then they go out to eat at a nice restaurant where the couple gives out little gifts to the wedding party, as though a pair of earrings is going to reimburse a bridesmaid the $300 she laid out for her dress.

In the typical conventional wedding, the groom and all the male members of the wedding party rent precisely the same exact model of tuxedo. As a result, when they line up for a picture they look like a family of giant penguins. I assume the tradition of making all the men appear identical was started so that in the event that the groom didn’t show up, the best man or perhaps one of the ushers could fill in. The bride, on the other hand, is apparently not an interchangeable part, as evidenced by the fact that she spends over a thousand dollars on an elegant dress that she will never wear again, while the bridesmaids dress like a bunch of harlots.

Wait!  Don’t let me spoil your fun!  Tie the noose!  Or, if you get invited to a wedding, have fun congratulating the happy couple and drinking the free booze. How else are you going to spend your Saturday?

Oh, that reminds me, the weeds...